Machine Spirit
by Lazurman
Summary: In the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, a Progenitor Commander builds a metal extractor. And just like that, the fate of an entire galaxy, and the multiverse as a whole, is changed forever more. (Planetary Annihilation/Warhammer/Multicross)
1. Chapter 1

Machine Spirit (PA/Multicross SI)

A/N: Some of these stories have a little thing that makes them unique. Drich was the first, the pioneer. Torroar has a Unit Cap. Me? I start my adventure in hell.

Chapter 1

ROB, contrary to popular belief, was not _always_ a dick. Most of the time, assuredly, but not always. I'd used him several times as a matter of fact; it usually turned out kind of okay for the victims. My ROB was actually a pretty cool guy. I'd patterned him after myself. But the ROB that did this? Whether it was a cosmic version of me or not? Most definitely a dick. You hear that? Fuck you, ROB. Fuck you so hard.

Bit of an odd way to start an audio-log, isn't it? Heh. Whoever's listening to this probably doesn't even know what a ROB is. To put it simply, a ROB is a literary device used by the authors who inhabit a particularly peculiar series of forums I used to frequent. They're an odd bunch, and I already miss them terribly. It is an acronym that stands for Random Omnipotent Being. Or Bastard, depending on the dickishness levels, which totally applied here.

Whenever an author wanted to explain the unexplainable, or create a scenario otherwise impossible or unfeasible by normal means, they used the explanation, "A ROB did it."

From the perspective of those 'ROBbed', they were eldritch, unfathomable beings that molded the forces of reality to their liking, without a care given to the concerns of lesser beings, mortals and gods alike. All were equal targets in the eyes of ROB. They are an answer to the age-old question of, "What would one do with unlimited power?" The answer was anything and everything they pleased.

And today, I had just been ROBbed. In a very particular way.

I'd seen this kind of thing happen before, only with the safety of a computer screen and the walls of the multiverse between me and the action. The many tales I'd read of for this exact scenario were so utterly _fascinating_. Self-Inserts, authors who inserted themselves into various works of fiction, transplanted into the bodies of 15-meter tall brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war, Commanders from the video game Planetary Annihilation, for the sole purpose of using their awesome and terrible foreknowledge and newfound power to unfuck the various universes they find themselves in (and entertain their ROB audience, but that was a given).

You know how the saying goes. It's all fun and games until someone gets turned into a giant robot. Something like that, anyways.

This was my life now. I'd been sitting behind a computer screen, rereading the story of the first and most famous of the Commander Inserts, when the universe suffered a blue screen of death and was replaced with a formless darkness, infinite in its emptiness. I'd been too shocked to scream. And then it was too late. I didn't have a mouth to scream with. Or lungs. Or even a brain. All of it replaced by my new chassis, constructed of hyper-advanced super-materials designed by an ancient, warlike progenitor race for the singular cause of doing battle on a galactic scale.

This was the Progenitor chassis, a broad-chested and sleek bipedal design, painted steely grey and light blue, with a nano-constructor array on one arm and a heavy-duty pulse cannon on the other. A Commander was expected to be dropped from orbit to a planet's surface, and promptly raise endless armies of killer-robots to drown the enemy with by force of sheer numbers. Or swarms of nuclear missiles. Or strapping titanic engines to lunar bodies and dropping them on the enemy. Or blowing up planets with the help of a moon-sized Death Star laser ripoff.

Point is, Commanders are walking-(not)talking murder-machines of doom, perfect for the art of waging war and not much else. I was now, to put it bluntly, one rather killy sumbitch. In most universes, I'd win against just about anything that wasn't a literal god with just a few days of build-up.

But the place I was in?

A myriad of sensor arrays, some used by modern humans, most incapable of being imagined by human minds, had not been idle in the ten or so seconds I'd spent contemplating my new existence. Oh yeah, that there was another perk of being a hyper-advanced machine: time dilation. I'd instinctively spent upwards of a few hours internally going through the stages of shock, grief, wonder, all the crap new SIs had to deal with, and the sudden ability to see all of the _everything_ within my not inconsiderable range, all in the span of just ten seconds. Almost like my own pause button. Neato.

So, yeah. While I was regaining a semblance of calm, I'd been recording what my sensors were telling me. When I finally took a look at the data, I didn't want to believe it. I did not want to believe that my ROB could have been so cruel. But he had been.

 _-Traitors! And cowards! Will be shot! Forward, you maggots! Forward! Charge! Die a glorious death! Die for the Imperium! Die for your Emperor!-_

That was the first radio broadcast I heard. It was not the last of its type. Calls for fire support and evac, orders being bandied about, interspersed with litanies of hatred and prayers of fervent religious zeal; all of it, and the armies of drab-armored lasgun-toting infantry and spiky, screaming, blood-coated cultists fighting in the burning city in front of me decorated with skulls and other such Gothic iconography all pointed to the setting of my unasked-for adventure.

Warhammer 40k. The place good little robots like myself did not deserve to die in. On a scale of one to Bad Time, I was having a Very Bad Time. I would have been crying, had I the ducts.

…You know? In a way, the raw morass of terror, despair, hopelessness, and helpless rage helped make my decision for me. Do I do my utmost best to commit suicide and spare myself the horror of the brief remaining stint of my life? Or do I keep calm, praise Teh Emprah, and do what Commanders do best?

Again. Fuck you, ROB. Fuck you, so, _so_ hard.

I laughed internally, long and bitter, and so _very_ , _**very**_ _**pissed**_ **.** _ **Off**_ **.**

In the grim dark future of the forty-first millennium, a Progenitor Commander builds a metal extractor…

 _Sooooo many heads were about to roll._

XXXXX

AN: *glances at hands* Et tu, Muse?

Eh. Nothing for it, then. Here goes another one.

The main thread for this can be found over at Spacebattles. Just posting it here to see what kind of reaction I draw. Hope you lot enjoy it. Next chapter to come soonish.

I have no update schedule.

Edit: The transfer to FF ate my chapters formatting, so I lost a few quotation marks the site doesn't allow. Fixed now.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It had already been remarked on by all of my forebears, but it bore repeating nonetheless. Commanders were pure, concentrated, _bullshit_. I was not kidding when I said that a Commander, left unchecked, could conquer a solar system within a matter of hours. It took me only a few seconds that begin constructing the economy that would let me do that.

A glowing green stream of nanomachines spewed out of my arm to a spot on the ground my sensors were telling me was most efficient place for the purpose of extracting metal. A sturdy structure that could, simultaneously, dig up deposits of metals, refine them into a useable form by Progenitor standards, transmute all of it into a weightless, massless energy-form, and beam it all into a subspace inventory accessible only by me. Flawless mass to energy conversions. And back again. All in just a few measly seconds.

An energy plant followed that. Then another one. Then a few more extractors. Then some storage structures. Then some turrets…

I paused as I looked back at the number of structures I'd just built. It was surprisingly easy to get carried away with this. All the better for me. Now the armies could be raised.

The Enemy had made a mistake in giving me five minutes of free time. My body went on auto-pilot as I continued setting up my base. My newly upgraded mental processes were busy going over anything (which was everything) I could pull from the radio broadcasts flying everywhere. This world did not have an internet. And that was just plain unforgivable. It also made my attempts at getting a good info-dump futile. All I could pick up were Imperial Guard tactical commands over the radio. And the identity of the attackers.

Khornates. Cultists and daemons in service to the Warp god of bloody murder, Khorne, versus the flashlights and can-do attitude of the Imperial Guard. The IG was losing, badly. Looks like Chaos would be the first to suck on my guns. This group of fuckers in particular were probably going to love fighting me. "The Blood God care not from where the blood flows, only that there is blood!" and all that rot.

Let's see how long that attitude lasted. Probably until I murder all of Chaos's worshippers and cut the Warp off from the Materium with Necron-tech.

The bot factory finished construction. Then the other one. And the Doxes started churning out in the dozens.

See, this is another part of the reason why Planetary Annihilation units outclassed those of so many other settings. The Dox was the single weakest infantry bot producible by Commanders. They had basically no armor to speak of, and tended to explode like so much popcorn in the face of most opposition.

In PA, that is.

Not so much here. Every single Dox was of a height and weight with the venerable Space Marine Dreadnaughts, and _leagues_ more mobile. The guns they toted were nothing to scoff at either. And these blocky little robots came in swarms.

My weakest units were peers to some of the most powerful infantry forces fielded by the Imperium. This made me smile inside.

I immediately directed a detachment of fifty to the city as soon as they were all done. It gave me somewhat of a giddy feeling seeing them form up and start sprinting to the fight, the ground rumbling as they went. ETA: fifteen minutes. Primary directive: Ensuring the safety and well-being of all human forces. Secondary objective: Elimination of all Chaos forces. Collateral damage acceptable in the pursuit of aforementioned objectives.

They'd make a difference in this fight. All I could hope for was that the outrageously xenophobic humans wouldn't start shooting at me at first sight, too.

Oh, would you look at that. The air and vehicle factories had just finished as well. Now the fight was about to get even more lopsided in my favor!

XXXXX

I split my attention between expanding my economy and plunking down more walls and defense turrets, and micro-managing my Doxes. That was another thing I could do; fork myself. Even the best and fastest PA players were limited to whatever their screen could show at one time. I didn't have that problem. From the Commander unit I was installed in, to the growing fleet of fabricator bots scurrying about, to each and every single Dox about to slam into the unprepared forces of Chaos, I controlled all with equal levels of attention paid to each.

Was this what Skitter felt like? Unlimited multitasking really was the most broken power ever.

I could hear the confused radio chatter as my small army thundered in.

 _-And for the love of the Emperor, will someone tell me why the ground is shaking?!-_

Good a time as any to say hello. I cut in through the chatter.

-That would be me.-

 _-What the- WHO IS THIS?! How did you crack this frequency?!-_

That was encrypted? Whoops. My bad. Another point in favor of Progenitor-tech.

This was a good time to raise the question of how I would interact with the Imperium in the days to come. I dialed up the time dilation to buy time to think.

When I said the Imperium was xenophobic, I was not kidding. I was a nonhuman. That was grounds enough to get a bolter round to the face. Even worse, I was also an artificial, sorry, _abominable_ intelligence, in their vernacular. Ever since an early attempt at AI soldiers had gone bad and subsequently pushed in humanity's shit, AIs were banned, feared, and reviled.

And I? I was the most dangerous AI the Imperium would ever know. Even the most progressive and forward thinking members of the Imperium would think me an existential threat. To be fair, I was, but intent mattered a hell of a lot.

But, aside from all of that, I was _human_. Whether or not my skin was made of metal, I was, first and foremost, _human_. For all of this fucked up galaxy's many, many, _many_ flaws, I could not stand idly by and let my race die. Not when I had the power and will to help.

Nothing for it, then. I'd just have to do my best to be friendly, and if they still shot at me, well, fine, I'd deal with that then. Wasn't like I couldn't afford the losses. "We have reserves" _literally_ defined my combat doctrine.

-I'm a friend of humanity. Brave soldiers of the Imperium, reinforcements are at hand. Allow us to take it from here.-

Should I add it? Couldn't hurt.

-The Emperor Protects. Now let's kick these sons of bitches off this planet!-

With that, the first wave of Doxes crested the hill obscuring them from the city. And as legions of killbots started pouring fire into the unguarded flank of the undisciplined hordes of murderous traitors, loudspeakers fit enough for the Noise Marines embedded in each Dox boomed, **"FOR THE EMPEROR!"**

Today was a good day to keep calm and purge the heretic.

XXXXX

AN: Ave Imperator!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My Doxes slammed into the enemy like a tide of unstoppable steel, spewing hatred-filled balls of plasma. Every one of the rapid-fire shots meant a melted cluster of enemies, every step meant a daemon ground beneath my giant robot feet. A horde of screaming barbarians, most armed with scraps of fabric attempting to be trousers and a sharp piece of metal or a crudely made autogun, didn't even compare to the types of enemies Commanders were meant to fight. There were a lot of them, though, and they weren't the real threat. They were just the meat shields for the real troops.

Daemons. Warp-borne entities composed of emotion, usually negative; _very_ negative. Khornates were the servants of the god of war and murder. Every act of bloody violence committed in anger strengthened him. Which was something of a problem for me.

I did not consider myself a violent person. I actually tried my best to avoid conflict. I liked making friends much more than making enemies. I'd gotten to the point where even the shittier kinds of people in high school smiled and greeted me with a hearty "Yo Archie! What up?"

But, all the same, I _hated_ Chaos. The sheer scale of its malevolence, the eternal torment of the poor souls foolish enough to follow them, the _pointless, unchanging_ , _unending_ _hell_ they perpetuated in this _fucked-up_ galaxy; I hated it all _so much_.

And it felt good to destroy the things you hated. _Very_ good. That was a problem when it came to Khorne, something the Imperium, with all of its litanies espousing the virtues of hatred, had failed to grasp for so long. Humanity was its own worst enemy when it came to Chaos. It was why Khorne had the most power out of all of the dark gods. Humans were so very good at hating, and killing, and all too willing to do so.

I refused to give Chaos an inch. Give them an inch, and they'd take everything, and leave nothing but pain and suffering. Thusly, there was only one thing I could think of that I could do.

'This mustn't register on an emotional level,' the combat doctrine.

I wasn't human in form. Unlike a human, directed by chemical impulses and brain structure, I was a machine. Everything I was, was now so much streaming lines of code. Code could be edited. Hatred was optional.

It was a drastic step, modifying myself like this. But when the choice came down to not doing it, and enjoying the carnage to come, potentially giving even more strength to the strongest Chaos god, or doing it, then it wasn't really a choice at all.

I hoped I was making the right decision. God, I hoped so.

Here goes nothing.

 _Accessing root personality matrix._

 _Saving current personality matrix, codename: Prime._

 _Establishing new personality template, codename: Warface._

 _Establishing if/then personality template clause: If engaged in combat with the possibility of Chaotic influence, then exchange personality template Prime for personality template Warface._

 _Deleting emotional matrix 'anger'._

 _Deleting emotional sub-matrix 'hatred'._

 _Deleting emotional sub-matrix 'lust for battle'._

 _Suppressing emotional matrix 'fear'._

 _Updating primary objective: Preserve the physical and emotional well-being of sapient, non-Chaos lifeforms._

 _Updating primary objective: Destroy all Chaos forces in such a manner that does not violate the aforementioned primary objective._

 _Save personality template: Warface._

 _Applying._

 _End access._

And that was that. I let out a metaphorical breath. I felt calmer. More rational. The horror of my situation wasn't gone, but it felt a great deal more manageable. Useful as this was, I couldn't become reliant on it. Didn't want to risk irreparably damaging my psyche.

I wouldn't destroy Chaos because I hated them. I would destroy them because they stood in the way of peace. Khorne would draw no strength from battles with me. My machines were soulless (or at least, I thought they were) and thus could not be sacrificed. No blood, only metal and circuitry. No joy in battle, only clinical detachment and cool logic. Perfect professionalism.

I didn't hate Chaos, now. I pitied them. From my perspective, it wasn't their fault for being so fucked up. It was ours. The humanity from my world had created it. Games Workshop had designed this universe to be a parody, the epitome of grimness and darkness taken to the most absolute of extremes. If pressed, I could not come up with a setting more messed up than that of Warhammer 40k.

And now it was my job to clean it up. And clean it up I would. I pitied them, yes. But that didn't mean I wouldn't crush them wherever I found them. I had my goal. I would drag this galaxy into a Noblebright future kicking and screaming if I had to.

I watched dispassionately as howling squads of cultists and Bloodletters were vaporized by plasma, each shot calculated for maximum effectiveness with no unnecessary overlap. This ungodly level of multi-tasking made my efficiency of warfare obscenely high.

There were tanks and other daemonic engines of war on the field as well, contesting with the Leman Russes and Chimeras of the Imperial Guard while corrupted Valkyries on strafing runs wove between streams of flak emitted from IG Basilisks. Their plasteel and ceramite frames were holding up surprisingly well against plasma. Well, better than their fleshy infantry had so far. Yoinking imminent, once my fabbots arrive. See what I did there? Fabricator bots? Fabbots? Eh? Ah, whatever.

Daemonic engines of war adorned with skulls and the eight-pointed stars of Chaos trundled forwards into battle, powered by madness and blood and firing munitions of the same. Mortar-like tanks fired arching gobs of the sanguine liquid that boiled with a heat greater than magma at my army. It seeped into their frames and sought to wear away at the joints like acid, but the sturdy construction of the Progenitors held firm, and such weapons found no use against my Doxes. The engines equipped with melee weapons died before they could close the distance. It was the tanks that did any lasting damage. Shots here and there impacted against the armor, denting and tearing in some places, lucky hits blowing off limbs. Immaterial. I felt no pain. My units were expendable.

With Chaos caught on two sides by the armor of the Imperial Guard and my Doxes, the battle, which had promised to be a long and grueling exchange, quickly turned into a rout. Enemy infantry simply couldn't survive in such a hostile environment, with bullets and plasma flying through the air thick enough to be mistaken for walls of death. They were liquefied first. The enemy armor didn't last much longer than that. With the ground clear, my Doxes could calculate the flight paths of the enemy air-power, and they set to filling the sky with plasma as well. It was even easier than sniping Banshees with a Scorpion in Halo.

It was as the last of the fighting was dying down when a tank on the IG side fired a shell at my forces and blew the head off of one of my Doxes. It remained standing. Wasn't like anything important was in there except for the optics, anyway. To a unit, my remaining forty Doxes froze, and very carefully did not point their weaponry at the twitchy Imperials.

I allowed a trace of annoyance to color my tone as I addressed the Leman Russ responsible, as well as broadcasting the transmission across the entire local IG battle-net.

-Nice shot, soldier, but would you kindly direct your fire elsewhere? I am not your enemy.-

A hatch on a larger than average Leman Russ popped open and a grizzled man dressed in a uniform that at first glance appeared to be an old-timey set of dress blues interrupted whatever the pilot of the guilty tank was going to say, his gruff, commanding voice riddled with suspicious wariness as he spoke into a hand-held Vox-caster. I didn't blame him for it.

 _-This is Tank Commander Abraham Cook of the 17th Mordian Iron Guard. You say that you are a friend of humanity, but your forces are clearly inhuman in design. What cause have I to trust you?-_

Huh. I was more than mildly impressed. He'd asked a question before shooting. That deserved a prize of some kind! Later.

-I have not shot at you. Nor do I plan to. You have no cause to believe me, Commander, and that's fine. Believe what your eyes are telling you now. I could have just as easily stayed out of this fight and let you grind yourself down on Chaos, but I didn't. I value the life of sentient beings as precious, not something to be thrown away. I'm here to help _save_ this world. _Please_ , Commander. _Let me_.-

Please please please please _please_ be a reasonable authority figure!

 _-...Fine. But give me a reason to regret my decision, and I swear that there will be a reckoning…whoever you are.-_

- _Thank you_ , Commander Cook. I promise on my life and honor, I mean no harm to the Imperium, and I will gladly surrender myself for questioning once all this is taken care of. But for now, every moment we dally is another moment the Enemy is slaughtering defenseless civilians. There is work that needs doing.-

And oh yeah, that's right. I needed a name. It just didn't feel right to use my real name. Drich and the other Commander SIs used their webhandles, but Lazurman kinda, sorta, lacked gravitas. Tiki and Torroar used their Commander designs as names, but that wouldn't work for me here either.

I dialed up the time dilation. I'd probably be thinking about this for a while.

…I was _horrible_ at naming things!

But aside from that, I was ecstatic on the inside. Peaceful first contact! I had my foot in the door! Now, all I had to do was drive Chaos off the planet, and then I could sit a human-sized avatar down with them and we could see about helping each other even more! Yes!

Oh, hey, the base defenses and the reinforcements were done. My new armies utterly dwarfed that first force I'd sent out, with a mix of Doxes, tanks, bombers, and fighters. Now to start upgrading to T2 structures and setting up some orbitals so I can take a look-see at what we got going on up there…


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The first things I'd sent into orbit had been a few small, insignificant Hermes space probes. Tiny little things, they were fast, and could give me a better look at what was going on space-side.

To put it mildly, space…wasn't looking good.

The shattered wrecks of once mighty vessels tumbled in orbit, all that remained of the forces of the Imperial Navy defense fleet. A mere handful of the redoubtable Imperial vessels still contested with Chaos warships for space superiority. Judging by the profiles…a single battlecruiser, a light cruiser, and three frigates were all that was left, and none of them were in anything even resembling good shape.

And opposing them were the ships of Khorne. They hadn't emerged unscathed from the conflict either, but there were still three cruisers and six frigates left. Not good.

Luckily for me (or unluckily, depending on how you sliced it), unlike his fellow Chaos gods, Khorne despised sorcery and trickery of any kind, much preferring instead to use his vessels solely as chariots to bring his bloodthirsty hordes to the next fight. What that meant was that while they didn't have as many special tricks and gimmicks as other Chaos warships, the great vessels were relentlessly ferocious, charging into opposing ship formations to overwhelm them with boarding craft in order to slaughter them in their vessels to satisfy the endless sanguine thirst of their dark god.

From what I could tell, most of the damage taken by the destroyed vessels had been exactly that; the Khornate fleet had used their guns to bring down the Void shields, and then swarms of boarding craft had penetrated the hulls to disgorge Khorne's assault troops.

Crystallized blood seemed to glitter in the rays of the orange sun as one of my probes maneuvered through a wreck. There were…a lot of bodies floating up here. A lot of bodies. And there would be a hell of a lot more if I didn't do something.

But what?

I wasn't sure how much help I could be up here. Where Planetary Annihilation outdid its contenders on the ground, so too did Warhammer 40k surpass theirs in space. No one else had quite a reputation for building _big_ like the Imperium did. Imperial ship-building doctrine revolved around putting a giant gun in space, slapping some heavy-duty armor and engines on that gun, adding another metric fuckton of guns, and building a fuck-mothering cathedral on top of _that_ , and calling it good. Some ships had been in service since the Horus Heresy, 10,000 years ago, some from possibly even further back.

For fuck's sake, their godsdamned _frigates_ were over a kilometer in length. That was bigger than some settings' _dreadnoughts_. The biggest ships I could create were barely a few times bigger than their _fighters_ , and none of my units even had shields. So yeah, I was in a bit of a pickle. It didn't matter if I owned the planet or not; if I couldn't establish an orbital foothold and turn the fight around in favor of the Imperium, everyone would die all the same. Plus, there was the not-insignificant problem of, "Still gotta convince the Navy not to shoot at me either!" Le _sigh_.

Fortunately for me, again, ROB had done me a solid, compared to the other Commanders. He had given me the schematics for every single unit that had ever been released in the game. Not just the original Planetary Annihilation units. He had given me the Titans expansion pack, and everything in it. Even the designs for a Metal Planet. And the Annihilaser that came with it. But, alas, that wasn't meant to be in this fight. Too expensive, and too time consuming, and coming from me, that was saying something. I also had the strangest feeling the natives wouldn't take kindly to me turning their only moon into a planet-busting superweapon...or maybe they would. I'd bring it up later.

No, another schematic would have to suffice here, instead.

The Helios. The invasion Titan. The one space-capable Titan in PA's arsenal, and possibly my most major contribution to a space battle.

Had this not been 40k, I'd have said it looked like a giant flying Starmie. A giant flying Starmie that shot some impressively-sized artificial lightning bolts and had a teleportation beam in the empty center. Perfect for bringing the wrath of god (and your waiting army) to an enemy planet-side. With a little work, I didn't see why I couldn't make it start blasting opponents in space as well. And the teleporter! I could think of more than a few ways to use that thing offensively. Might even make for a good trump card.

But there was a problem. This was 40k. And thusly, the Helios didn't look like a Starmie to me anymore. It now looked kind of like the eight-sided star of Chaos. And considering that, if I wasn't mistaking my canon for my fanon, the Men of Iron had been corrupted by Chaos because a spot in their circuitry happened to resemble said star. (On that note, I did a quick check of my systems for anything similar; nothing turned up, so there was that going for me, at least.)

You really could not be too careful when it came to the possibility of Chaos corruption, 'cuz it was some _bull. Sheeit._

If Chaos got their grubby little mitts on me, the Imperium, and the rest of the galaxy, would die. I wasn't about that life. The current schematic needed to _go_.

So, I opened up my handy-dandy unit designer and made a few minor tweaks. The initial design had been, for the most part, purely aesthetic, with some functionality. It needed spires for the lighting attacks, and an enclosed ring for the teleporter. So, I shaved off a few spires, branched the others off until it resembled more of a high-tech snowflake instead of a star of EVUL, turned the circle into a square, and bam, problem identified and solved in a few microseconds. I could be bullshit too!

I needed to step up my production. Aside from a few raids by Chaos that had been rapidly discouraged by massed laser-turret fire and nanobot swarms dissolving them into more resources, things had been all quiet on the home front, allowing me to build in relative peace. And I sure needed it; my economy was not nearly big enough to field the multitudes of warships I would need.

Miles upon miles of unclaimed ground were repurposed for the much more important fight in space. More metal extractors and energy plants were built and upgraded to T2 to feed my hungry war machine. Nuclear missiles were assembled and stored in their silos, awaiting my fatal command. They would be the first strike against the enemy's Void shields. Anchor defense satellites spread out over the planet, sniping enemy troop dropships as they flitted about; what few managed to dodge my fighter squadrons, that is.

My orbital launchers launched my orbital fabbers into orbit, which then proceeded to fabricate an orbital factory. (In orbit. In case you couldn't catch the redundancy thing I had going on here.) Then ten more. In those factories, Artemis railgun platforms and Omega battleships were queued up by the dozens; Avenger space-fighters, by the hundreds. My forces may have been massively outsized in space, but by the Emperor, I'd make up for it by outnumbering them a hundred to one, a thousand to one if I had to!

An entirely imagined chill ran through my circuits as my Hermes sent me an urgent ping. My mad scramble in the planet's orbit had not gone unnoticed.

Uh oh.


	5. Chapter 5

**Machine Spirit, Chapter 5**

My mad scramble in the planet's orbit had not gone unnoticed.

The Imperial Navy had found me. A frigate was making a heading for my position, while the rest maintained vigil for the next bout with the Khornates. This was only slightly less problematic than Chaos finding me.

A lot of factors had contributed to Commander Cook's decision to not order his forces to attack me. A common enemy, lack of hostilities on my side, as much emotion as I could project through the vox, usage of the magic word 'please', those had all definitely influenced it.

But aside from that, I was fairly certain that there was also the knowledge that, having seen my Doxes in action, he knew that if his battered tank units fought my infantry, he would lose. That wasn't a mark of cowardice against him. Had I been an enemy, he and his men would most likely have died standing, fighting to the bitter end, because that was what humans _did_ here. It made him smart, and willing to prioritize against a greater threat.

I didn't have such an assurance here. I only had a handful of Omegas and Artemis, and a single Helios so far. I'd upsized them a bit, stripped the décor and focused more on thicker armor and bigger weaponry, but I would still be squished like so many flies on a windshield if hostilities opened.

Ergo, the need for negotiations. I didn't hold much hope for being lucky twice in a row, but I had to try. I opened a channel with the frigate, intending to convince its captain that I was not an enemy.

That had been the plan.

But then I contacted something else, instead.

Vast. Old. As much circuitry and metal as it was…something _else,_ something _…immaterial._ There was not just crisp and clean computer code composing its existence. It was alive, not quite like me, not quite as…clear, or as advanced as me, almost animalistic in nature. But it was alive. I knew what this was. And as it became aware of my transmission, the machine spirit of _The Emperor's Judgement_ turned its attention to me.

Belief and emotion were physical entities in this universe. The Warp was the home of souls, and in its eddies and currents, existence itself was shaped by the faith of those souls. The Adeptus Mechanicus worshipped machines, from the lowliest lasgun toted about by a Guardsman to a mighty Gloriana-class battleship, they sang their praises and gave their glories to the Omnissiah, the Machine God, venerating the power of technology and the pursuit of knowledge. That fervent belief was not without effect in the Materium.

Imperial ships were cities unto their own, not a single one perfectly resembling another, not in terms of architecture, or crew, or experiences. The multitudinous thousands of souls who scurried aboard them spent their every waking moment in service to their ships, performing holy maintenance rituals on malfunctioning machinery, and seeing to the smooth running of the voidcraft that kept them safe from the ravages of space and the enemies of man. This diligence, something transcending normal efforts, gave life to these great machines, these machine spirits.

In this universe, machines had souls. And I could feel this one.

Did that mean I had a soul as well?

I felt humbled. And sad. Such a mighty engine of war, something constructed by human hands for the defense of mankind from all who would see them harm…and she was in so much pain. Atmosphere was venting from several decks, the results of shots having penetrated deep into and through the vessel. Her ramming prow was fractured and dented; another such impact would break her spine in two. The _Judgement_ had faithfully defended this relatively calm Developing World against the occasional raid by Orks or Chaos since she began her tour of duty, but never in all of her one and a half thousand years of service had she ever been so close to falling than in this battle.

And she still turned to face me, still defiant, still poised to defend her crew from what her captain perceived as a possible threat. I could feel her preparing for battle, targeting solutions lining up on my much smaller craft. What power remained in those guns would shred my fledgling fleet like so much paper.

I could stop her. It would be almost trivial. My systems were far more advanced than hers, soul-stuff aside. Her electronic warfare capabilities were almost laughably weak, primitive defenses battered by clusters of foreign code buzzing fitfully, appearing red like inflamed wounds to my senses, tendrils working their way deeper and deeper into her systems _ooohgeeze that's scrap code._

Not touching that. That right there was something that could do horrible, horrible things to me if I couldn't fight the infection. I steered well clear of the affected sections.

Brief moment of panic at a vector for Chaos corruption aside, I could shatter her barely-sentient mind and comb the pieces for knowledge; schematics, star charts, things I would need if I wanted to escape and survive. I could subvert her and force a total system shutdown, or even turn her against her crew.

I did none of these things.

I guess I really was too much of a softy.

-Be at peace, o great machine spirit.-

We communicated on a level incomprehensible by normal human minds, tendrils of streaming code connecting, intertwining to a degree I'd never experienced before in my life. A scarred and battle-worn image it was, but it was beautiful all the same.

-I am not your enemy. I fight the Ruinous Powers. I fight for humanity.-

Only perhaps members of the Adeptus Mechanicus could understand an inkling of what I was experiencing. I could see, now, why they were so moved to venerate machinery. Heh. They would probably throw an apoplectic fit at the thought of one of their holy machine spirits being interfaced with by such a blasphemous creation as I.

Her response, stunted and primitive as it was, was transmitted to me in harsh, brutal tone, laced with hints of static. She needed repairs something fierce, and that scrap code wasn't helping matters any.

 _-Unknown vessels. Xenos. Enemy. Cleanse! Purge! Kill!-_

No, no, none of that, you silly thing.

-I beseech you, great spirit, turn your weapons to the true foe. I am not a xeno. I am not an enemy. I am human. But I am also machine. A machine man. I protect humans. I protect machines. I would protect you, and your fleet, if you will let me. _Please.-_

Where another, more warlike commander would have already destroyed the potential threat and been on their merry way, I did my best to soothe. I always had been good at calming down upset animals. This wasn't too dissimilar, but there was a great deal more cautious respect involved here. After all, not every animal was a centuries-old warship that could squash you like a bug.

The _Judgement_ thought I was an enemy. So I sent it proof to the contrary. Images and video recordings flashed between us; a tank interposing its body as a shield between a cowering, soot-covered family and the forces of Chaos; clouds of ravenous blue nanomachine swarms delving into contested trenches to devour the enemy whilst leaving the Imperial Guard fighting them untouched; legions upon legions of Doxes clashing with daemonic war machines so that the fleeing human refugees behind them did not need to die. I sent all of this, and more. A thousand glimpses at the battle that raged below, showing myself as a friend, someone who _just wanted to help so fucking let me already!_

So I helped. The most immediate threat to the _Judgement_ other than all of the holes in her armor was the scrap code infesting her systems. I _might_ be able to do something about that, but that would involve the equivalent of dipping my hands into a hostile morass of corrosive, toxic waste in order to fish out a child struggling to stay afloat.

So what did I do?

I dipped my hands into that mess and pulled that child out. Some would question the wisdom of exposing myself to the possibility of Chaos corrupting me into a machine powered by madness and death. They would be right to. It was kind of stupid, what I did. But hey, I had certainly never claimed to be a particularly intelligent man.

I didn't think that the _Judgement_ deserved its fate; I respected its history too much. And if I spent my existence constantly afraid of the slightest _chance_ I would fall to Chaos, I would never accomplish anything in this universe that was so steeped in it. If I couldn't help save this one frigate, how could I possibly save this galaxy?

Carefully, I wove the best defenses I could around the mind of the _Judgement_ , the action as instinctual to my new form as breathing had been in my old one, isolating the infected sectors and keeping the viral code from digging any further. Then I started ripping into it.

Even as it ripped into me in turn.

It hurt. It _burned_ in a way nothing else had since I had awoken, like sinking my hands into a box full of poison-tipped darts and used needles, only magnified a thousand-fold. It really shouldn't have surprised me that the first real sensation I would feel in my new life as a machine was agonizing pain. Fitting, and likely only a taste of what was to come.

Chaos had a deleterious effect on anything that remained in contact with it for long. For machine intelligences such as I, that effect manifested as scrap code, likely the aftereffect of the shots that had lodged themselves within the _Judgement_. Non-sensible numbers that had no logic nor reason assaulted my very being, madness in digital form. The rate of damage was growing greater than my ability to repair it. Was I really going to die from this, at the very start of my new lease on life?

Deep in the heart of my base, a stream of nanobots rapidly coalesced into a human-sized android, just so I could have teeth to grit. The metal quickly warped and deformed from the force.

I _refused_ to die today; or any other day, for that matter! I would not be turned into a monster by some _insignificant faulty broken stupid OP hax computer language!_

As greedy, ravenous tendrils of code continuously battered my firewalls, new barriers were thrown up behind them and pushed forward, my cyber-warfare suites launching attacks of their own into the infected zones. My hyper-advanced mental processes and Progenitor-grade software held the rogue code back from anything vital and allowed me to fight back at the same time. A sea of insanity sought to consume me, and so I held the sea back and set it on fire.

Chaos is _nasty_. But here, I was nastier.

Bit by bit, progress was made, and the traces of malignant code were gradually erased from both of our systems. I felt what could only be described as inflamed scars left behind in their wake. No physical traces remained. But I felt _wrong_ , all the same, _unclean_. I'd need to consult an expert on this matter once this was over.

I could feel the presence of the ship's techpriest contingent busily working from their end to protect the _Judgement_ and purge what I hadn't reached. I brushed against their minds occasionally as I worked; with the cyborgs plugged into the ship's consciousness as they were, I could feel their emotions. There usually tended to be a great deal of fear involved whenever that happened. But! The presence of determination and awe were promising signs!

And on that note, it was done. _The Emperor's Judgement_ had been cleansed of the worst of the foul code. What remained was held in check by programs of my own and the _Judgement's_ own newly-repaired counter-measures. It wouldn't be eliminated in its entirety until they could dig out the slugs the Khornate's had filled her with.

A tentative ping reached me after my scrape with scrap code. My efforts had not gone without reward. I had healed the machine spirit. She was okay. Give her time, and repairs, and she would emerge stronger from this conflict. I was glad. This would be the part where I let out a relieved breath of air had I still the lungs to do it with. Her vast, simple mind had become calm.

 _-Machine man. Ally? Protect? Purge together?-_

-Yes. Ally. Protect. Let's purge some heretics.-

My android body grinned in satisfaction. As someone whose list of noteworthy accomplishments as an organic totaled up to around zero, this had been something worth doing. I had done something that mattered. And that felt… _great_ didn't even begin to cover it.

Thus assured that, no matter what happened next, the machine spirit would not work with its captain to destroy me, I opened communications with the man, audio-only. The exchange had only taken three minutes, in all.

My electronic voice sounded somewhat more exhausted than I was used to.

-Greetings, Captain. As your techpriests are no doubt already aware, something has just interfaced with your vessel's machine spirit and purged the scrap code plaguing her systems. That something was me. I apologize for any alarm I may have invoked, and I assure you that was not my intention.-

 _The_ _Emperor's Judgement_ had ceased lining up targeting solutions, but it was continuing its approach at the same pace, likely to get a better look at me. I'd managed to double my fleet strength during the exchange. Soon, I'd be ready to enter the fray with something that mattered.

My other projects were still well under way. Time to get cracking.

Oh, yeah. I'd finally decided on a name. Kind of bland, but eh, I could always change it later.

-This is Commander Blue, of the Legio Machinae. I'm here to help.-


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Beustunia was a beautiful world. Or at least, it had been, before Chaos arrived. Not a proper Hive World, it was still in its development stage. Verdant fields of greenery brushed up against the developing cities, vast, deep oceans teemed with life, imposing mountain ranges stretched into the sky; the life of the planet had yet to be choked out by the smog and pollution of the Imperial war machine.

From my many eyes in the sky, I could see it all. A green and blue ball so much like Earth. And Chaos had ruined it.

The sky, once blue and (mostly) clear, burned red and purple as the barrier between the firmament of reality and the madness of the Warp grew thin, centered over the largest concentrations of the Khornate ravagers. If I couldn't clean this mess up fast enough, Beustunia would become a Daemon World, consigning every soul on it to a fate far worse than death. Hell, the Inquisition would probably try and execute the populace to keep the existence of Chaos on the hush-hush even if the invasion was repelled. This entire universe as a whole was fucked to hell and back.

Needless to say, that wasn't happening while I still functioned.

My reclamation of the Imperial wrecks was progressing apace, but I had yet to grok the inner workings of Imperial spacecraft. I dedicated more fabbots to the cause to speed things up, though it would be rather pointless if I couldn't figure out a workaround for my lack of a Navigator. I didn't have any templates for an FTL drive, so escape into the vast reaches of space wasn't an option for me; for now anyway. At least I could evacuate the civilians to fortified zones on the other side of the planet I'd set up.

It was a trial in and of itself actually _getting_ the Omnissiah-fearing locals onto the transports, but the sight of Imperial Guardsmen and PDF working alongside me in ushering civilians aboard helped smooth things along. I suppose it was all very frightening and awe-inspiring to see all the huge and heavily-armed machinery at work for the poor farmers and laborers. I'd yet to properly encounter a red-robed Machine Cultist, but it was only a matter of time before it happened. They'd either sprout a tech-boner, or cry 'HERESY!' Most likely both.

An idle thought about the human body had me spinning off a sub-process to design a human-sized bot. I wasn't a very creative person. So, I took inspiration from something whose design I was already quite intimately familiar with. The human body was a machine like any other, merely composed of flesh and blood as opposed to metal and circuitry. I knew the human body just as good as I knew my robotic one. Hell, I'd dissolved enough cultists in swarms of ravenous nanobots to know humans down to the cellular level.

I wasn't lucky enough for ROB to have given me a shipgirl body complete with tactile sensation like Ramble's, or have the right tech to create something from scratch like Fusou's. I'd have to make one of my own.

That is, not a shipgirl body, I mean. I still self-identified as male. I didn't need the issues that a surprise gender-bend would give me on top of _literally everything else._

I used what I had, and what I had worked. The frame stood exactly six feet tall; its skeleton made of an alloy even stronger and lighter than titanium; its flesh was a flexible pseudo-plastic that could flawlessly mimic human skin in texture and coloration; ultra-thin stalks of opaque fibers served as my own blonde hair; a miniature reactor powered both it and the micro-fabber concealed in my left arm, while the right incorporated some new 40k tech, a stripped down hotshot lasgun.

Now if only I could find some of those fancy rings or a Jokaero so I could get some properly functioning laser eyes instead of these boring Mk. II eyeballs, that'd be _great_.

By most appearances, I looked human. A psyker would give the game away if he cared to look. Otherwise perfect for my needs as an infiltration unit/diplomatic face. Wasn't sure if they would take offense at my adoption of the human form—no, they _definitely_ would take offense at that, at anything I did. Fuck 'em. I was human long before any of these chucklefucks were, save the Emperor, the Sensei, and the Perpetuals. How hipster of me. Besides, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

I wasn't able to eliminate the uncanny valley effect, though. My own innate love of symmetry, matching parts, and order meant my bot was perfectly symmetrical. _Nothing_ naturally human was perfectly symmetrical. My movements were too precise, too…perfect. Every motion was calculated and executed with all the efficiency of the machine mind controlling it. Drawing upon my past experience seeing people walk, it was more than a little unsettling, all told.

I could have done something about all of that. Spent more time in simulations fixing these design flaws. But I didn't like lying to myself, or to the people around me. I was a machine. And nothing short of literal divine intervention would change that. (And the last thing I wanted to do was consider the theological implications of my existence.)

I was a machine who once was human, but a machine was a machine was a machine. Not human.

Fuck this train of thought, man.

Point is, using one of these new bodies of mine, I was about to engage in my absolute _least_ favorite form of conflict: social activity. I had enough problems talking to people when they _weren't_ instinctively itching to fill me full of bolter shells, for god's sake. But, alas, Cook had insisted upon a meeting with his superiors. He would be here as well, but he was still needed in his Baneblade, taking advantage of my reinforcements to wipe out the remaining Chaos Engines. Leaving me to explain my presence, my actions, and my existence to a bunch of suspicious zealots like as not to declare me silica animus and attempt to purge me.

Life was just _grand_ sometimes, wasn't it?

My Avatar body was a mile away from the firebase whose coordinates I was given. A low-flying dropship had dropped me off, leaving behind a modified Skitter to serve as my automobile.

I revved the engine a few times for theatricality's sake before zooming off along a paved road littered with craters and burnt out wrecks. Oddly enough, my fear of driving had been significantly reduced with the knowledge that no one would be hurt if I screwed up behind the wheel. Funny, that.

Gun emplacements swiveled to target my approaching form, but held their fire. Pseudo-muscles clenched in a nervous gulp, though I had no saliva to swallow.

Showtime.


End file.
